Earlier this week I took the photo below of the River City apartments. I was working for a special event at the Willis Tower. It was a group of Italian doctors in town for the ASCO annual meeting (American Society for Clinical Oncology) in Chicago. While usually the special events I coordinate are curated private tours, in this case it was my Italian language skills that were needed.
Italians in Chicago
I have lived in and traveled around Italy for a total of a few years, first as a student stumbling through simple phrases. Later I was hired with the Rick Steves tour company as a professional tour guide, and then my Italian got really good.
Despite that I speak fluent Italian, I rarely get to take Italians on architecture tours around Chicago. One is simply that for Italians, Chicago is not a top American destination for them. They are much more familiar with stories of Al Capone than our top-notch restaurants, beautiful beaches and parks, and cultural attractions that I know many Italians would love. And secondly, Italians tend to still vacation during their traditional month of August. It’s pretty much the only month of the year that I get booked for private tours in Italian of Chicago.
River City from the 90th Floor
So enough of my rambling about Italy. The reason I am telling you all this is because this is why I ended up on the top of Willis Tower. I was helping out for an event of a meeting and dinner with Italian doctors. While the clients were occupied, I had some moments to snap photos of the Chicago architecture, and here is one that I particularly enjoyed.
I love this snippet of the Chicago skyline for a few reasons:
1. It’s a rare area of undeveloped land.
2. It includes the Chicago River and boat parking.
3. River City looks like a backwards letter “S.”
Architect Bertrand Goldberg built his River City in the ’80s. It’s of course modeled after his iconic Marina City. Guests from our Private Yacht Charters always remember it for being so distinct and so lonesome on that stretch of the river.
I tried really hard to get a good picture of the spider crawling around on the outside of the window I was photographing through on the 99th floor, but my iPhone just couldn’t snap quickly enough to capture his little legs without a blur.
— Amanda Scotese, Executive Director
